Guyanese Kadir seemed radical but not airport bomber

GEORGETOWN, June 4 (Reuters) In the Guyanese bauxite mining town of Linden, people remember Abdul Kadir as a combative ex-mayor and bitter critic of government policy, but they find it hard to believe he was plotting to blow up New York's John F Kennedy International Airport.

US authorities on Saturday charged Kadir and three other men with conspiring to explode fuel tanks and a supply pipeline at the airport, in what an official called ''one of the most chilling plots imaginable.'' ''People in Linden are very surprised and shocked that he may be so deeply involved. He is regarded as a militant for residents, but not as a troublemaker,'' said one of Abdul Kadir's former colleagues in the mining industry, who refused to give his name.

Residents of Linden, 105 km south of Georgetown, remembered that in the mid-1990s, when Kadir was mayor, he tried to get the town to launch a general strike to protest what he viewed as government neglect. He drew little support.

In a telephone interview with Reuters, Kadir's daughter, Inshirah, said, ''We would like our dad to come home. He is not a terrorist.'' Kadir, a 55-year-old Shi'ite Muslim preacher, was a member of the South American country's parliamentary opposition until August, when his party selected another candidate for election.

A civil engineer by training, he had worked as a senior consultant to the Linmine bauxite company.

The US indictment against him said that he offered financing for the plot and acted as an intermediary between the conspirators and the Jamaat Al Muslimeen, a Muslim extremist group behind a 1990 coup in Trinidad.

''The only militant I ever knew him to be was of his party's position. I am very shocked at the allegation. He was very polite and straightforward and had a good relationship with members of parliament across the divide,'' Guyana's Parliament Speaker Ralph Ramkarran told Reuters.

Guyana is a former British colony on the Atlantic coast of South America. About 10 percent of the population is Muslim.

FLYING TO IRAN Guyana's Stabroek News quoted Sauda Kadir, another of Kadir's daughters, saying her father had been arrested in Trinidad while en route to Shi'ite Muslim Iran, where he would attend an Islamic conference.

From Trinidad, he was planning to fly to Caracas, where he could pick up an Iranian visa.

The United States accuses Iran of being one of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism, a charge Tehran adamantly denies.

According to the US indictment, Kadir said the plot money could be kept in his foundation in Linden.

The Web site of The Linden Fund (www.lindenfund.org), a group committed to ''the economic and social redevelopment'' of the town, says Kadir sits on its board. The fund could not immediately reached for comment.

The US indictment said Kadir was using his engineering know-how and images from Google Earth (earth.google.com) to plan the bombings. Kadir favored an early morning raid to minimize casualties, it said.

Muslim leaders in Guyana worried the charges against Kadir could turn their communities into objects of suspicion.

''There has to be something for American authorities to move against Kadir, but Muslims around the world are paying the price for some of these things,'' said a Guyanese Muslim leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

''This will have repercussions on Muslims and Guyanese, but I hope the process will be democratic and justified. Our job is to promote Islam not as a fanatic religion.'' REUTERS PDS BST0451